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Technology Gurus (BJ6)






For teacher websites, I looked at FSUS, a school that I am currently observing. With the second grade classes, I noticed that they all have an "About the Teacher" tab that is available to everyone. On this site, it includes the teacher's history both in their K12 education and their career. For the teacher I am observing, Mrs. Wilson, she was in the military for a couple of years, and then came back and got her degree at Flagler College. She has been at FSUS for the past seven years. Also, all of the websites had a class schedule. I'm assuming this information is given for parents so that they know where and what their kids are doing during the school day. Finally, in multiple class websites there are tabs for upcoming events such as field trips, book fairs, and there are links for newsletters and curriculum so that teachers can stay up to date with their child's education. 

In my future as an educator, I see myself substantially using SmartBoard and the website ClassDojo to accomplish my professional responsibilities. Of course, these are just two resources that I want to use, but I specifically mention these because I think they will be the easiest to implement no matter the monetary status of my school. With SmartBoard, this technology is almost in 90% of schools, and they are great to use with my responsibility of teaching students. Because students can come to the board and touch the information, moving it around or clicking on different objects, it instigates more hands-on learning that will be more effective with information retention. With ClassDojo, this helps make my duty of addressing and engaging parents more efficient because it makes a central location that is easy to access from both ends. With this website, I can send mass classroom updates to parents and can use it to engage parents with what the class has done on a daily basis. Also, the best part is that it is mobile friendly!

One technology that I saw in the SandBox that I will try to utilize in my classroom is the Augmented Reality (AR). With this demonstration, Mariah showed us how we can set it up on anyone's phone where kids can walk through a classroom and it moves in the phone with wherever they "are" in the screen. For example, she showed us how if we wanted to take a field trip to the White House, but didn't have the resources to actually do so, we can set up a "trip" with AR that will allow the kids to walk all around the White House and even into rooms that aren't available in a regular, in-life tour. With this resource, I can add that needed visual element into my teaching that will allow the kids to be more hands on. It was very cool to actually hold the phone, walk forward physically, and in the screen be in another room; I could even turn around, and President Trump was there giving me information about that particular room! 

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